This is where I pretend I know what I’m doing.

I get asked a lot by people who see me shooting at events what settings I’m shooting with, particularly around shutter speeds. I know photographers who are all across the board in this respect. Some shoot very fast shutters because it allows them to freeze the action with a very high ‘keep’ rate, some shoot with verrrrrry slow shutters which is much much harder but the one shot in a hundred that came out look great. Myself I try to be somewhere in the middle, generally around 1/160 for a panning shot.

Since the differences between 1/120 and 1/160 so hard to explain let me provide some examples…

These shots were taken at a High Performance Driving School this past June at Atlantic Motorsport Park. I was on the stand in Turn 9 which is a perfect spot for panning shots. The track wraps around the stand at roughly the same distance the whole way around, cars are moving at a good speed and the background is busy but not ugly.

Here’s a Mazdaspeed 3 approaching turn 9 at 1/120@f9. The background is nicely blurred and the wheels convey a sense of motion. Personally I find things a little too blurry though.

Here’s the same car in about the same spot at 1/160@f11. Personally I like the motion blur this shot a bit better. The background isn’t as blurred with the panning but the wheels have more definition. To me its a more interesting look.

As a side effect of going a with a faster shutter, my ‘keeper’ rate is miles better at 1/160 vs 1/120 as well using my 70-200 f4L lens at full zoom. Remember, the rule of thumb for handheld shooting is “Shutter = 1/Focal Length” unless you have very steady hands or good panning technique so I’m right in the ballpark.

These shots were taken in ‘Manual’ mode on a Canon EOS 40D with a Canon 70-200 f4L lens.

Another thing to keep in mind is that these slow shutters work best on a side-on pan where the car is always roughly the same distance away as it moves. If the car is moving towards or away from you it has the chance to get closer/further during the time your shutter is open making for a blurry shot. If you’re dealing with a subject head on you should generally increase shutter accordingly. 1/250 or 1/320 are generally ‘safe’. Just to be more maddening this also very much depends on the speed of the car as well. A car doing 30km/h around a rallycross course is going to have different rules of thumb from an F1 car doing 300km/h in a straight. It makes the head hurt sometimes.

I often have a hard time planning for a scene, which is something I’m very much working on getting better at. I’ve improved at looking at what the cars are doing and associating the desired results in my head with a rule of thumb for settings. It takes a lot of hit or miss shooting and paying attention to what works. You have to keep in mind lighting, perspective, backgrounds, depth of field, speeds, framing and more all at once. And to make it more fun these factors can change from minute to minute, particularly at an event like Targa Newfoundland where every car and driver is completely different.

Also bear in mind with all of this that I’m basically raving my own uneducated opinions out there. These are just things I’ve taught myself over the last few years of shooting with more manual cameras. I learn by trial and error and I’m a very seat-of-the-pants shooter. I’m sure there’s better ways to do and think about these shots, but this is how I do it.

That… probably wasn’t helpful at all, was it?

… what have I been up to with all this no-updating?

Well, bringing spoon.org back up to speed, for one. I think that things are pretty good in that regard. I’ve got the new gallery back up and running and populated with all of 2008′s photos. Have a look there for entries like the Halifax Pride Festival and Slalom at Slemon 2008.

Other things keeping me busy… I’ve been asked again to be the official photographer for Targa Newfoundland 2008 and this time I’m taking them up on the offer. As such I’ve been busily preparing things for that role. I had some business cards made up and arranged things like backup camera bodies and some upgraded lenses for the event. I’m sure no matter what I bring I’ll wish I had more but it will definitely be an interesting chanllenge. You can find more information as its available on my Targa Photos Page, complete with an online order form for photo packages.

This past weekend was the annual stop at AMP of the Parts Canada Superbike Championship and we figured it was time we took in the show. A couple of long days on various corners and it was a good show indeed. No serious incidents and some great national-calibre racing! Did I mention it was long days?

Slalom at Slemon was enjoyable, more or less. Terrible weather Saturday meant many, many off courses for competitors and a lot of folks’ enjoyment suffered as a result. Thankfully Sunday was dryer and folks were a bit more content. I’m pretty happy with how the Miata handled though I’ve been playing too much with the rear sway bar. I still can’t decide if I like it better soft, stiff or not hooked up at all. Currently the car is setup with the latter which is the preferred configuratin for wet handling. The chances are pretty low that I’ll make it out to another slalom this season though so I should probably just hook it up again.